The middle dantian, also known as the heart dantian or the Crimson Palace- associated with fire and yang, sometimes referred to as one of the three elixir fields, and also, important point, more or less in the literal heart. Or right next to it. It can vary. Oh boy do I love Daoist internal alchemy. It's the way it's not really consistent, and that's okay to its practitioners.

Not normally considered a healthy place to find a spear, the heart, but here we all are. Metallurgy is so much more straightforward. You appreciate straightforward things, I imagine. Or do I have it wrong?

The ancient spear floated in Liren's middle dantian. Silently.

It was worth a shot. A talking spear isn't even that unusual. Normally I'd assume you couldn't even perceive me, but you are ancient, by the standards of this world. And things that stick around that long usually have their own means of survival. Like changing hosts when the old one dies. Or providing them with, and I'm picking an example completely at random here, but an extreme yang body cultivation art that would make them extraordinarily suited for hard yang style martial arts and spearplay.

There was more silence from the spear. The biochemical struggle between the poison and damage to Liren's body, and the voracious cultivation arts in Tian's, continued apace. Tian was healing too, but that wasn't where the energy was going. Most of the focus was on breaking down all the vile things infesting Liren, and infusing her with pure wood-qi rich blood. Blood which her own Southern Mountain physique turned into fiery vital energy and the strength to fight on a little bit longer.

Not that I'm criticising. I'd do more or less the same thing. I prepared carefully for this job. Knew what kind of world I was dropping into, had saved up a big chunk, I came loaded for just about anything. You want to know what I packed for our hero here? Your genuine article Primordial Chaos Body, Nine Dragon Pulse Meridians, Supreme Godhead Seven Colored Soul Refining Light, and a double dozen other physiques, enhancements, tools and refinements, just in case he might need them.

And do I ever have them arts! Star Consuming Sutra, Beast God Law, Astral Meridian Tactics, arts for manipulating time and space, the void, fate, you name it, I got it. Giving him a Ninth Heaven Tribulation Lightning Physique and a matching cultivation art was the very least I could offer. I thought. I should be able to turn a goddamn potato into the God-Emperor with all this. An actual, literal, potato, the actual, literal God-Emperor.

But what have I actually been able to provide? Poison management, and the most unbelievably lousy cultivation art known to a cultivator penal colony. Something I learned specifically in case he needed to lock up a cultivator under very particular circumstances.

And he used it exactly once.

The thorns struggled against the surging tide. They weren't being destroyed by Tian's Thunderous palms anymore, so they were starting to make a return in some places. The thread-like roots dug into tough muscle, knotting and growing. They were having the most success in the most damaged areas with the least blood circulation. Places where the networks of minor meridians were broken, and the fiery vital energy struggled to reach the fleshy body it supported.

None of the surging qi fixed the gross physical damage she had suffered- the broken bones, destroyed muscles, destroyed skin. The blood seeping out of her from a dozen holes. Tian's body was furiously trying to replace what was being lost, and Grandpa Jun was making sure the blood wasn't rejected, but it was always a losing battle. A delaying action, until the thorns could be defeated. If they could be defeated.

Well, so it goes. All I can do is do all I can. The best, and shittiest, part of my job is that I always get stuck with someone I come to love. They truly become my grandson in spirit, every goddamn time. I am… so very proud of them all. Him especially. So. You know. Make yourself useful or I'm having my boy refine you into a novelty toothpick.

Glands inside of Tian started throbbing. Catecholamines were already flooding Tian and Hong, epinephrine making the hearts pump hard. Grandpa Jun prodded Tian's adrenal glands to produce even more adrenalin than they already were. The thyroid was next, driving his metabolic rate up far past any healthy limits. Angiotensin wasn't neglected either. Anything to drive up the heart rate and increase blood flow.

A flood of hormones poured into the blood stream. Tian's heart sped up, slipping out of synch with Liren's for a bare moment. There was a nasty couple of seconds. Then the hormones hit Liren. Her heart started beating faster, and Tian's adjusted to match. Blood circulated faster. Wood qi, rich and vibrant, permeated the blood.

Blood from Tian's heart, to Liren's. It washed over and around the Crimson Palace. The wood kindled the flame around the spear. The spear might not be as alive as Grandpa Jun, but something in it was provoked. The kindling flames grew, and more wood qi pulled into the middle dantian. The fire exploded into a blaze, then poured from Hong's heart into the rest of her body. Bright yang qi seeped into the torn and ruined flesh of her back, igniting the thorns.

Blue-black flames lit up across Hong's back. Brilliant white at the bottom, inky black at the top. If Tian had been awake, he would have screamed at the sight. He was lying on top of Hong, the blood vessels in their legs sutured together. The thorns burned, Liren burned, and Tian burned with her.

Grandpa watched it happen with cool dispassion. They were attempting the suicidally impossible. How could there be no harm as a consequence? Besides, the little bathtub his grandson had dug was full to overflowing with tainted, but merit and qi rich, blood, water and fluids. Even the corrupting runoff from the purging process was valuable. More grist for the mill. But first they needed to finish the job.

Assuming they could finish the job.

Grandpa eased off the glands, cutting hormone production to levels closer to a healthy range. The two teenager's hearts were allowed to rest a little easier. Nerves, particularly pain nerves, were deadened. Grandpa Jun could interpret the signals. No need to trouble Tian's brain with them. There were so many, after all. The energy that should have been spent healing his own body was being directed largely into Liren. What was left was barely enough to keep Tian alive.

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Grandpa turned his attention to the complex knot of qi spinning around the statue in Tian's lower Dantian. Male and female bodies, joined at the head, with a lotus crown on top. A clear metaphor for yin and yang, rigid and rejecting being inescapably paired with soft and accepting. Light and dark, life and death, all one piece with each other, and everything else as well. Once you understood that, truly, deeply and completely understood it, your mind would achieve the purity and perfection of a lotus. You would be a sage.

But it was a daoist creation. It could be both a metaphor and the literal truth.

Now then. Let's just see what happens when I make things worse.

Grandpa stopped intercepting some of the flying nerve impulses that should have had Tian thrashing like a fish on the dock. He started seizing. Small, powerful spasms, ripping open his wounds further, snapping tendons, worsening breaks. It didn't do Hong any favors either. Her already ruined back muscles were beaten harshly by the hidden strength within Tian.

That should about do it. Sorry Grandson. Hope nothing comes up that needs me to explain something because this is going to be all I can do for you for a while. One last push…

The faintest threads of golden light reached out and flowed along the blood vessels connecting Tian and Hong, capillary thin. Capillary in nature, too. They flowed down the very least of the minor meridians. Pathways so small, most cultivation arts didn't even acknowledge them. They were refined and improved along with the major meridians. What was there to say? What was there to even do with them?

The hair thin meridians, goaded by the golden light, stretched, ever so slightly, and made contact with the capillary sized veins in Hong. There was a little burst of golden light, so small, even if you were looking right at it you might not notice.

The statue in Tian's lower dantian noticed. The Supreme Virtue Hell Suppressing Body Refining Sutra shivered. The sudden influx of fiery vital energy mixed with the wood vital energy in a blaze of pure yang qi, flooding the near ruined meridians, healing and strengthening as it went. Racing down to the lower dantian.

The remnant toxins and poisons were drawn in as well, almost funneling down, into tight streams around the statue. With each twist and revolution around the statue, they broke down further and further, becoming nourishing yin qi. All the foulness and taint was ground away, leaving pure nourishment and healing for the body.

With the amount of damage they had suffered, there was no way what was left in their bodies could be enough to properly heal them. But they were lying in a stone tub full of yin water and toxins, and Grandpa had made sure there were lots and lots of points in their bodies the water could infiltrate. Once the Hell Suppressing Sutra really got turning, the water wasn't just seeping in, it was pulled into the wounds.

Male and female united as one, yin and yang turning, infinitely generating and suppressing. Two of the most fundamental tenets of daoism were that nothing was only one thing, and that when things were in balance, they would endure. For the first time in uncountable years, the statue did what it was truly made to do.

Meridians were healed and restored. Muscles regrew, reknit. New skin emerged to replace the old, as wounds clotted, healed over, then vanished. Burns scabbed, then soughed away as healthy skin emerged under them. The broken bones were harder to resolve. They were sintered together where possible, but there was a certain… condensing. A certain recognition that there just wasn't enough material for flesh AND skin AND blood AND organs AND bones.

The sutra's creators had their own little idiosyncrasies. The spell left a mark on both Tian and Hong. In the end, there simply wasn't enough material to work with. Once the spell ran out of dead or corrupted materials, once all the yin water had been absorbed and all the remnant medicine had been consumed, the spell dropped down to its usual slow, grinding pace. Tian had lost the Myriad Tormenting Worms dagger somewhere during the fall, so the spell was doing its best with just the wood qi from Advent of Spring.

Grandpa sighed, and with a tiny flicker, the little capillary meridians were severed.

Wish I could do something about the blood vessels, but that kind of gross manipulation is miles and miles beyond me. You two will just have to figure out the rest yourselves. Back to not being heard, and being even more of a ghost. Second shittiest part of the job, honestly. At least when I can talk, I can give advice. Be a positive person in his life. Now I get to just sit and watch. Seeing from the inside just how much things are hurting him.

The only comfort I can offer is the illusion of a hug. Ain't that a trip? Just enough energy to tweak the right parts of the brain into thinking someone is hugging you. What a life. What a stupid life. Metaphorically speaking, anyway.

Grandpa sighed. If Tian had done this all on his own, he would be swimming in oceans of energy right now. But he hadn't. It was what it was. Nothing to do now, but wait.

Sitting in the darkness, watching the stars cross over the hole in the cave roof. Not thinking any thoughts. Just waiting.

Little golden motes of light drifted through the hole. Not enough to be a stream, but enough to form a noticeable trail in the air. It descended from the sky above and reached down towards Tian's hand, then the base of his ring finger.

Hmm? For me? You know I can't use this. Only the energy he earns himself. It's meant to be a virtuous cycle. What use do I have for your merit? Give it to the kid, he can use it!

He was speaking to something in the sky now, looking away from Tian and Hong. The drifting gold motes seemed to ignore Grandpa Jun. He sighed again. There would be a lot of being ignored in the near future.

Fine. Fine. Being acknowledged is nice every now and then. Not like I can reject it anyhow. Maybe if I collect enough of it, I can exchange it for valuable coupons or something. Maybe a two for one deal on day old fish. Ghost fish, obviously. It would just be silly otherwise.

Grandpa Jun appreciated the little golden sparkles as they fell through the dark of the cave. They were even prettier to look at from his immaterial perspective than they were to still-living eyes.

It would have been nice to know there was a second one. I don't know how she would have turned out without my Grandson, but… God, the two are going to be inseparable. More than they currently are, I mean. It's so weird. It's so damn strange. What a twist of fate.

He smiled, whimsy and sadness in equal measure.

I really thought she was going to be a stepping stone, you know? That's how things are supposed to go. If I had been able to set him up properly, he'd have crushed the Hongs and avenged his family by age nine, Heavenly Grandma notwithstanding. I'm not saying he would have been a better person for it. It's just how these things happen. By sixteen, he would have been able to pack up Ancient Crane Mountain in a mustard seed and Liren wouldn't even be a memory.

Instead, they are dao companions, in every sense but the romantic, and the world has not one hero, but two. Such strange fate. That prick's been ripping off my energy since I arrived, and now it's bitten him in the ass. He robbed me, and doubled his problems!

Grandpa Jun laughed one of his worrying laughs.

Strange fate! And I welcome every minute of it!

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